


The Demon’s Granddaughter

by Rosi345



Category: Good Omens (TV), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: A visit!, Aziraphale is a tiny bit of a jealous sort, Borrowing characterizations from wherever I please, Cap And Thor aren’t here atm, Crowley has raised so many children, Crowley has too many kids, Gets a bit non linear for like one chapter, I know it should be obvious but AU, Italian Tony Stark, I’m sorry there’s a lot of OCs that’ll probably be mentioned with some frequency, Kinda, Like for both things, Multi, Names and Titles are Important, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Natasha Romanov is older than she looks, Natasha’s kinda snake-y, Other, Pepper Potts can see ghosts, The Timeline is fucked a bit sorry., Tony’s being haunted~, badly written team bonding!, bit Of a non specific lore dump, clothes as a metaphor for love, gender fluid crowley, reasons, seriously, tags will update as it goes, very very AU, why’s that tag relevant?, yea i know
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2020-09-23 21:53:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20347321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosi345/pseuds/Rosi345
Summary: Natasha Romanov’s hair doesn’t dye unless she wants it to.Now, you might say, something along the lines of “Duh? That’s how that works.” I won’t apologize but you misunderstand me. If she’s at all hesitant about it, if she tries dying it out of duty, for a mission, or for anything other than she wants to, it will remain ruby red and artfully curly.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Look at first it was just  
“Hah, Movie Natasha and Crowley have reaaaally red hair and probably accidentally contributed to the Soulless Ginger thing.”
> 
> then I was just like “Huh, I really like that headcannon that Crowley was working as a spy around ww2. I also like that thing idk if that’s a thing out of the old days of the movie fandom but the thing where Nat’s older than she looks”
> 
> “Crowley constantly adopting children is a cute/tragic headcannon”
> 
> “Wait.”
> 
> And now Y’all get to suffer this stupid thing with me.

Look- he didn’t mean to alright?

Now this is a phrase that repeats fairly often in his long life isn’t it? Didn’t mean to fall, didn’t mean to trip over his own two feat in love, didn’t mean to go back and forth between pining and sulking for years-centuries-millennia, didn’t mean for that to be a nice thing, didn’t mean to, didn’t mean to, didn’t mean to.

But- Really this time was completely unintentional alright?

Crowley was in Russia, for work, and to avoid Aziraphale and well...

He didn’t want to befriend another human- didn’t want to adopt another human— not another sister, not another brother, not another sibling of indeterminate gender, and especially _not another kid_.

They die too fast and Crowley _knows_ he gets too attached.

Slept ten years the last time one of them died and nearly missed out on another having to walk off with Death once he woke.

But- he saw a girl getting kicked out of a church, long black hair streaking behind her as she-as she _fell_ from the church steps and landed in the snow. She sobbed on the ground, knee deep in the snow as the doors slammed shut behind her and the light of the church abandoned her to the cold. She didn’t even have a coat.

He related okay? “_Projected_, more like.” Aziraphale the great bloody _hypocrite_ would say, but _he’s_ not here, so he related to her.

He walked over quickly, a bit of a miracle to walk quick in the snow, a sweeping shadow in several layers of black and fur and blood red hair-

-She screamed (understandably) and tried to punch him in the stomach. But again, several layers!

Several layers of course meant about ten layers of furs and two different coats, one thinner than the other, he’s cold blooded and in Russia for someone’s sake— where he’s going with this is that he couldn’t feel that hit at all, and it _was_ a good swing, Angel approved probably.

Once he had gotten her to calm down (soothing words, he can be good at words-occasionally-when the situation calls for it) he miracles another layer of fur, wraps it around her shoulders and head and slipped them both into the shack he was currently staying at.

There wasn’t a fireplace when he bought the thing but he lasted approximately one hour with the shitty heater before.

Ya know.

Miracled it.

He gave her a coat, she suspiciously took it.

———-

She called him “Ruby” (not in English obviously but Crowley could hear the intent of calling him by hair color.) in turn he called her “Raven” (still obviously Russian) she took a sort of annoyance with this but she didn’t tell him her preferred name and he didn’t tell his, so they stuck with the nicknames.

They were roommates for awhile.

At night he’d leave and do his temptations, a nudge here, a nudge there and well, humans make their own miseries.

He’d greet her in the morning with food and accented Russian, Raven’d eat and ask him pointed questions like; why _he_ didn’t eat and _where does he go at night_ and where he gets the bread.

Sometimes he’d sleep, sometimes he wouldn’t, sometimes she’s be waiting for him with his tea made when he came back from work.

Barriers break down quickly when you share space with someone-

Raven saw Crowley feminine and masculine and neither, He’d catch her trying to read some of his reports, (not in any human language of course but to her it looked like code. Kinda.) she caught him without his glasses and he’d occasionally wake to find that there’s a kids face buried in back of his clothes. It’s a lot like having a kid, he’s had kids before, not biologically had obviously but- the point is he’s raised children before and this was a bit like it. Not.. exactly.. (he lied to himself, he did that a lot in those days, attempting to protect himself from the inevitability of-, Aziraphale was always better at that one than him.) but enough that it occurred to him to become properly fond of her. Start teaching her things and encouraging the spark of wit in her.

(Aziraphale would like her, Crowley thinks, she’s ever so clever and has a poetic streak in her, well, as much as Aziraphale is _ever_ fond of his kids, unsure of how to interact but sweet enough, he’s better with the older ones honestly.)

Raven occasionally went to the town that threw her out, head held high wearing her clean warm coat. She’d talk to her friends like nothing happened, she walked past the people she used to call family as if they were strangers and payed no head to any calls of her old name, she would not let this place forget her, a spiteful spirit for her aunts and parents to stare distraught at.

He’d sense _Spite_ clinging to her when she’d come back.

He supposed they got used to her again or something.

Raven was young when he took her in, 14 at the most if he’d have to guess, bit starved but who isn’t here. He fed her and clothed her and taught her and named her and eventually she got to that age that folks would knock on his door asking for his “daughter”.

And she clung to his coat, heedlessly flinching from these folks behind him.

He could feel a sticky warmth swelling in the place his heart’d be.

Well if he’s to be a mother then-

He didn’t hesitate to act as the disapproving parent, he didn’t hesitate lowering his glasses, terrorizing these boys out of their wits, dragging them to their mothers, casting harmless but terrifying hallucinations, half threatening anyone who made his Raven even mildly uncomfortable.

The people in that nearby little town started referring to Crowley as a Ruby Hag, a local spirit with a human daughter and no mercy towards those who would marry her And he had loved it. He was filled with such a unholy glee, being able to throw a bunch of low level evil around like that, and no one even questioning it! They would just run, or apologize, he may have had to wear far far too many layers to be able to even function but he had to say he was enjoying Russia a lot more than he should’ve. Considering the state of it and why he was there.

But of course- one day a boy came by calling the girl by the name he gave her and they looked at eachother like...

His Raven’s dark eyes lit like His Angel’s did whenever he happened to spot him in a crowd.

The Boys face had a hesitant tiny smile, unused to smiling- Well.

He pointedly didn’t protest him. And she didn’t look to “Ruby” for help.

His Raven, he’d have admitted it then, his kid, married this boy. Not in a church- obviously. But outside during spring, with miracled poisonous-when-ingested flowers in her hair, and a wickedly happy smile.

They moved in together and Crowley got used to being alone again. Of course they visited and talked in low tones over the state of the country while Crowley tried his best not to worry about a certain angel practically a world away.

His Raven announces one day that she was pregnant And well, he’s always glad to be there for his children.

“Good Things,” Aziraphale would say when particularly maudlin and drunk off his own arse “For humans, anyway- end.”

Well.

It ended certainly.

——

Raven _screams- and screams- and screams_

Her hands are covered in blood and she claws desperately (weak so weak but insistent) at her mothers arm

_Begging_, not bargaining, not ever bargaining- not with her mother, begging that she do something anything-! Raven keeps screaming and Her mother is eerily still.

They were running, there were people with guns and knives—

—_And her husbands pale blue eyes will never again light up whenever they see her_

—And.

Her mother is turned away holding her baby and the baby isn’t crying anymore.

_There’s red on her mothers hands._

Then her mother, muttering that; _“I can do this it’s possible I’ve performed life miracles before”_ finally moves, strokes the babies cheeks and breathes out a slow measured breath, then strokes the top of their head, soft downy hair slipping from black to the bloodiest of reds-

-And the baby cries.

Raven _tries_ to move more to whats left of her family and she can’t, “Ruby, I can’t move-“ she whines and in a instant her mother practically wraps around her and the baby. Soothing words spilling out of her painted lips like water.

Its like she’s a kid again.

Upset and unable to drag herself from the snow.

Raven tips her shuddering blood covered hand over her babies head, and marvels, it’s like nothing happened and no one shot at them.

“She’s so beautiful Ruby...” she whispered eyes wide. Her mother hugs her a bit and lifts her out of the snow. “We can’t stay here Raven, c’mon hospital.” Mothers voice is trembling, higher, scared and soothing at once. Raven speaks no higher than a whisper, licks the blood on her lips and says

“Vera.”

“_What_.”

“Given name... I don’t think you _can_ do anything with my name now.”

“No no no **don’t you dare** die right now.”

“Ruby please I don’t wanna die not knowing what my mother’s name is-“

“-**You. are not. leaving me yet**.”

Vera, who hasn’t referred to herself as that even in her head the moment she was called Raven, fell quiet. Ruby’s sharp teeth and painted lips were pulled into a wince, if a wince could be filled with terror, she wasn’t looking down at her but ahead, she can feel her mothers breaths go too fast, as she walks steadily.

As Ruby thinks and thinks her breathing gets faster and Vera slumps into her bony chest more and more as blood drips. The cold doesn’t dare attempt to pierce the warmth in her mother’s black layers so at least the baby is safe.

It’s a long silence before her mother speaks again.

“Crowley.” Her mothers head tilts down slightly, fear giving way to despair.

“It’s not my given name but I prefer it, I never minded Ruby, the way you say it might as well mean mother. I- you’re _mine_\- you’re my kid, like all those other kids up and down there are my kids and nothing will take that from you, stupid little people threw you away so I picked you up. you’re my kid Vera.”

And Raven- Vera- sighs.

“Love you too.”

X———-xx———

They made it to the hospital, Vera had managed to hold on by Crowley’s terrifying, yet love filled, demand that she not leave him yet.

She still can’t quite absorb that her husbands gone yet.

The baby was named Antonia Veronica, and had been alive for two months before those bastards with the knives and guns came to her mothers home while they had been visiting, accusing him of betraying them.

Vera could now add Crowley to the name now that her mother had _bothered to tell his name_.

They handed Antonia Veronica Crowley over to the nurses for professional attention, Vera is treated quite throughly, bullet removed and stitches sure to leave a nasty scar, she was to stay over night and probably a bit more but Ruby insisted on staying, prepared to stand guard over her for a week if need be. 

She was relieved. And horrified and honestly she needs a nap. Upon saying this her- Crowley, she can call him that now- peered at Vera over his sunglasses and fondly murmurs “after my own nonexistent heart, Raven.” 

——————-

Antonia Veronica Crowley went missing from the hospital one sunny morning on a Friday, Her mother and grandparent and the hospital staff searched and searched for her for a long time, frantic and panicking and nearly murderous, but they couldn’t find her anywhere.

Not even the demon Crowley could find her through the piece of himself he left on her soul, his poor granddaughter was either dead or taken somewhere shielded from a demons searching eyes. And He’d keep looking, he would, but a certain war was getting out of hand and his work against all this was apparently getting pretty dangerous and he wanted his daughter _safe._

_So_

The woman who would be known from this day forward on her falsified paperwork and falsified birth certificate as Vera Crowley, jokingly called “Raven” by her mother, would follow the demon to England, split ways with her for safety reasons, (one not that far from Soho and one not far from Tadfield, go ahead and guess where each one went I dare you) and settle as a plant shop owner (that of course specialize in poisonous-when-ingested-plants) for the rest of her life. She’ll live a good long life, in fact a little too long, due to the imagination of a certain demon, and the fact that it never occurred to young Vera that she was _allowed_ to die now that she wasn’t 26 and bleeding in the snow.

A certain Angel will notice the name on this shops sign, on a gothic building that sells poisonous flowers, about a month after the Not apocalypse but think nothing of it. Only that his demon might like it, or perhaps young Warlock.

Definitely not knowing that Nanny Ashtoreth was forced by her daughter to bring “her only little brother” by to look at how extremely deadly pretty things can be, and also “Look Little Hellspawn, note that many plants associated with Christmas are actually deadly.”

And through these years a long ways away from England and it’s various problems, a couple facts remain that I haven’t told you yet,

Natasha Romanov’s hair doesn’t dye unless she wants it to.

Now, you might say, something along the lines of “Duh? That’s how that works.” I won’t apologize but you misunderstand me. If she’s at all hesitant about it, if she tries dying it out of duty, for a mission, or for anything other than she wants to, it will remain ruby red and artfully curly.

Natasha Romanov is the name the Red Room gave her, they didn’t keep her birth records so it’s all she had, she looked and looked for some traces of her original family for a long time but she couldn’t find them anywhere. So she kept her name, claiming it in defiance and a little bit of despair.

Natasha Romanov is as you’d definitely figured out by now is The Black Widow.


	2. Chapter 2

Natasha shifted outside the door of Starks lab.

Not awkwardly.

She doesn’t do awkward.

Assassins don’t do awkwardness.

The spy huffed internally.

It’s just Stark, she reminded herself, just a man with a lot of masks that even she has trouble with and she’s...herself.

She’s just going to knock on the entrance to his lab like a person....like a _person_ not a spider, not a- a _snake_, _not any kind of predator _that strikes without warning, Starks not a fly or a rabbit he’s a teammate and she needs. to be able. _to work with him_.

Their last couple of missions haven’t been going all that well.

Natasha and Stark don’t get along.

Cap and Stark get along far worse, she knows, but Cap has made his amends with Stark and the inventor accepted them quite easily, before Cap went on his little road trip. (To “see how the world’s changed” he said.)

So Starks only really mad at two people right now. Her and Fury, He still makes pointed jabs at Fury.

She doesn’t blame him really, the kind of manipulation they used to get Stark on board rubs most people who hear of it the wrong way, (read: Banner, James Rhodes, and Miss Potts.) she can’t imagine how an ego like Stark’s is handling being so thoroughly- well she doesn’t really think of it as _tricked_, it was a combination of him dying and desperation and her and Fury having a thorough understanding of reverse psychology.

But she’s not sure what the word would be.

Tempted maybe.

(...Everything is cold.)

Anyway it makes sense that he’d be all stung.

And alright it’s fine for him to be a bit pissy with Fury, he’s far away and at most, points them in the correct direction of whatever monster of the week has appeared from the depths of New York.

But she and Stark are _on the same team_.

They’re _both_ terrible at acting like adults and putting their issues aside, Stark snarks, she hisses something insulting back, he replies with sass and she has to restrain the urge to hit him.

Fury keeps scolding them for basically abandoning eachother on the field (ditching eachother in a crowd of enemies, arguing over directions, refusing to listen to eachother, etc) and their sniping at eachother over coms keeps turning into metaphorical attempts at eachothers souls.

Clint says that they’re just too alike not to fight.

So.

Well she’s decided to treat Stark like she’s dealing with herself, and if she had to work with someone who blatantly disregarded her privacy and went stabbing her with unknown things, she’d probably want to invade their privacy right back. So in order for him to feel like they’re even, (and her to stop feeling so fucking guilty) she needs to give something up- something personal- before Stark or Jarvis find her medical files.

(Look the only thing she’d consider personal are her abnormalities) It’s necessary, it’s easy, it’s _just her heat-lamp._

So why can’t she make herself knock?

**“Agent Romanov?**”

She jolted- (no she wasn't surprised she didn’t even jump what are you talking about)

“Yes, JARVIS?”

**“Sir would like to know why it is you’re ‘Standing outside the door like a anxious middle schooler who isn’t sure if they have the right class.’?”**

“I. Ah-“ she straightens, she’s really off her game today. (probably the cold.) “I...wanted to ask Stark about something.” She gestured with the clunky light fixture she was carrying, it was from her room at SHIELD headquarters, but since she figured it’d be more convenient to start sleeping at the tower, she’s been steadily moving her stuff in.

“It’s- my heat-lamp broke.”

(it _had_ actually broken, no deceit there, but she wouldn’t deny it was convenient.)

The doors opened and she forced herself forward into the beauty that is Tony Starks creative space. She always admired chaos, she could never really incite it but she always liked to watch a crowd of rich people run screaming into the street due to something silly like a bat getting into a restaurant.

(It’s yet another reason why her and Clint get along so well, he was absolutely delighted upon finding out that she’s got a sense of humor, even if it’s at others expense.)

Starks lab was controlled chaos and it was a thing to admire, not a thing happens in here that he didn’t want to happen, but it is certainly chaos that he’s jumping around in.

Blue holograms showing floor plan designs, at least two things are on fire, a robot with a fire extinguisher was spraying a lava lamp, a different one seems to be throwing tea leaves at one of the fires, the last one appears to be blending smoothie ingredients with motor oil, there’s what appears to be a feather sitting in a clear solution and there was a mixture of loud metal and and the distorted vocals of some woman blasting.

The place _smells_ like creativity— which isn’t as nice a smell as you’d expect, the closest she can describe it is like charcoal tasting energy drinks sprinkled with motor oil and clay, all paired with the slightest hint of fresh apples, —and spite which she more senses than smells. Tastes. Both?

The spy was certain she shouldn’t be feeling like she was on enemy territory and the only thing between them and another argument was the lamp.

And yet.

Stark waved her over while moving what appeared to be a torn apart microphone and some bits of a car, clearing a space, he was watching through the cameras wasn’t he?

“What, you have a pet as cold blooded as you?” He made grabbing gestures towards the lamp anyway, she forced herself even to not yank it back from him once she handed it over.

“You’ll find this funny actually.” Natasha muttered, Stark probably noticed her voice was shaking- he’s observant like that, but she’s betting he’ll ignore it until otherwise forced.

“Considering you don’t have a sense of humor I probably won’t.” she was right.

“I’m _literally_ cold blooded, Stark.” He paused in the middle of messing with the wires of her lamp.

He looks up, only moving his eyes to meet hers, and she can actually _see_ all the jokes he desperately wants to make flash before her eyes.

It’s kinda funny in itself.

“...You’re fucking with me.”

She let her resting face go as a crooked fanged grin split across her face. It’s a bitter dramatic kind of smile that got her punished over and over in the Red Room, eventually she trained her face to go blank, and that got her in trouble too, but less so.

“No, I’m serious, the doctors at Shield think the Red Room was messing with my dna, trying to make me more _predatory_.” She said, fake cheer coloring her voice.

Starks eyes narrowed, a matching yet far more fake smile on his own face.

“Loki called you a snake back in the Helicarrier, think that’s cause of that? Cause I thought he just meant the whole spy thing.”

(Specifically, he had hissed, after she tried talk information out of him, that _snakes recognize snakes_.)

She shrugged, eyes avoiding his and the smiles went away.

She rubbed her arms.

She’s getting.

really cold.

He goes back to working on the lamp.

That’s funny she figured he’d have more questions.

The sounds of Stark working are almost soothing.

The song and the voice stop playing. 

“So when you say it’s your heat lamp...”

Spoke too soon.

“It’s mine, they installed it in my room in place of the ceiling light.”

“How many hours under your glorified tanning bed do you need?”

“Eight and I’m good for awhile.”

“...What happens if you don’t have your lamp?”

“I get- cold.”

“No wordsmith, really? What happens to you when you get too cold?”

Something in Starks voice seems to say to her ‘You owe me’

And well she does.

She straightens her back, and tries to be clear and blank but she’s shivering, of course, why not.

“My limbs will eventually lock up-I can no longer move- and I will lose the ability to speak. I don’t. It gets harder the longer it goes but I can last a couple days before I just go still. uh- just- dump me in front of a heatsource if I knock out before that’s fixed.”

Stark _almost_ sounded flippant when he asked “Sooooo, _How long has this been broken_?”

“Two days.” she responded automatically

“And you’re shaking like a leaf, okay-“ he turns and yells towards the ceiling; “—JARVIS TELL HAWKEYE TO PICK UP HIS PARTNER IN CRIME BEFORE SHE_ KEELS OVER_!”

She startles, and hates herself for it.

He turned to meet her eyes again. ‘We’re even, I’ll fix this, don’t mention it’ Is what they sound like to her. “I’m moving you to the room with the fireplace.” Is what he says. Out loud. Okay. wasn’t expecting that. “There’s- a room- with a fire place?” She asks incredulously

Her eyes end up closed of their own accord,

_How did she miss that? _(Note: because she hasn’t been using the elevators to get around the tower)

“Yeah well I was planning on giving that room to Cap but I’m pretty sure you need it more than he does since he ain’t here.”

Is that a blanket she’s feeling on her shoulders? Yeah definitely.

A crashing sound

“Sup Tony?—Nat?!”

“Jeezus I’m gonna have to reinforce the fucking vents— here’s your buddy, I’ll fix her lamp quick, take her to the fifth residential floor- actually JARVIS can do it, just use the elevator—“

“What happened to her lamp?!”

“She didn’t tell you? Thought you were telepathically bonded, it broke a couple days ago and she brought it to me now, this is a peace offering _right_?”

“Yes it’s a piece offering, you’re taking it right?”

“Well I’m fixing it aren’t I? Go on, out, take the elevator!”

They were unceremoniously kicked out.

Mission successful, apparently.

She thought that’d be harder.

An elbow nudged hers,

“Quit thinking so hard Nat, you cold? I’m cold, let’s go hide on Caps floor, s’got a fireplace!”

“Tempting.”

“C’mon Nat I’m freezing! And if you get any colder you’re gonna go colorblind again.”

“Point. JARVIS?”

**“Just follow the lights Agents.”**

——-

Within the week, Natasha’s stuff was moved into the fifth floor.

Lots of space, a fireplace, a heat lamp installed in the lights over her bed, and a bar along a mirrored wall.

Not the alcoholic kind, a literal metal bar. It smells new.

New tastes quite a lot like cleaning products.

Her stuff smells like herself still, thankfully.

Within the month her and Tony were getting along much better.

————

“Unfair Romanov! Languages almost nobody speaks anymore should not count.”

“Nat you’re teaching me that as soon as you possibly can or I will sulk!”

“Damnit.”

They had made quite a game, (Natasha, Clint, Banner, Tony) out of seeing how manylanguages they’ve picked up, they were pretty even in number until Natasha brought out some old version of Arabic that she doesn’t remember learning.

“It’s not my fault you don’t brush up on ancient languages, one’d think you would, what with Thor coming along and confusing _every faith_.”

She _still_ chose not to think about it, she _was_ agnostic and now she’s just even more confused. She’s kinda glad he’s up in Asgard right now.

“_Don’t_ even get me _started_ on that- It drives me to drink and I am _way_ too hopped up on caffeine to get drunk right now!” The inventor’s head was thrown back in dismay, poor thing.

“Since when has that stopped you? _Not_ that I’m complaining.” Clint amended 

”JARVIS and Pepper are conspiring against me.”

She laughed. Out loud. A rusty jagged kinda laugh filled with sibilance. She hasn’t laughed like this for awhile, it unsettles people. She’s been doing a lot of things she hasn’t for awhile lately.

They all went quiet for a moment. Being unsettled or in shock that she just laughed, she’s unsure.

Clint, interrupted the silence with “Oh good, you guys can start being the twins, I’m tired of ‘The Spy Twins’ I deserve a more original nickname— don’t any of you say ‘birdbrain’ we all know that’s too easy. You two can be the Smartass Twins.”

Natasha smiled and flipped him off, Tony grinned without sitting up and told him to fuck off.

“But really _thank you_ for stopping all the fighting I was feeling kinda divided there.”

“With personalities like yours, you were gonna kill eachother or become best friends, and I wasn’t sure which would be worse.” The doctor laughed a bit nervously

“But I definitely prefer this to you fighting definitely.”

She purses her lips instead of her first impulse to open her mouth and check if Banner is really scared of her or just worried about saying something rude, just a smell- in case she’s reading his face wrong just a taste of the air- 

“-Are you alright Agent?” Doctor Banner asked, eyes mildly concerned. She supposed she must’ve been making quite the face.

“Mm.”

“You seem to be holding something back.”

Clint was looking at her now, cautious, he claimed responsibility over her when she left the Red Room, him and Phil, and ever since Phil died, the unflappably dangerous Phil Coulson- their handler- Clint keeps his sharp eyes on her now more than ever.

...

She gave up and breathed in. Just nervousness, pinch of concern but that’s her own fault. She should probably just warn her teammates about little things like this, it’s like all the therapists and doctors that kept having to be replaced; just give em the footnotes and move on. But.

“Sorry, you were saying?”

“You and Tony fought so much you scared poor Clint into the vents.” The doctor smiled serenely as Clint yelled ‘snitch’ “And Tony asked if your jumpsuits are insulated?”

She stared at her teammates for a moment

“The insulated ones aren’t as flexible, but I use them when I get cold.”

Tony immediately pushed himself up from his slumping on the couch, and looked at her, eyes gleaming.

Oh no she can smell the creativity.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I have decided that this chapter hates me and all that I stand for. It will not co-operate with me or my need to explain some abstract concepts when writing Aziraphale.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ready for the time line to skip around in the middle before it snaps back? Nope? S’okay. Finished this late again but I am done with this chapter I hate it too much. And no you haven’t been hallucinating I did put this up before but it was sloppily edited.

Throughout the ages, millennia, decades, years, months-

Crowley has been good with children

Well Aziraphale says; _good with,_ What he means is, Crowley has always _adored_ children.

So inquisitive, so loving, so chaos bringing— he’s describing the serpent now.

The First few years, the very first, he loved them from afar, playing with them, letting them braid his hair, allowing them to climb him, but ultimately letting them run back to their parents with a smile.

The Principality would see The Demon playing in the dirt with human children. He couldn’t help it, there were only so many humans for a good while, and well, humans don’t have _hair as red as blood._ (not naturally, and certainly not yet.) Yet despite the fact that the sight of the demon with children made something sweet flow in him, they didn’t speak again till the flood.

But then—

Something about the flood changed him you see, must’ve—

After that whole nasty business Aziraphale had started seeing him, (or her, depending) occasionally, with young ones.

Often not more than one, sometimes whole crowds of them, sometimes just two, or three- what _mattered_ was he’d see him with children. He’d see him throughout the centuries, out where he shouldn’t be, and teaching children how to manipulate people where anyone could see.

(Sometimes he’d see him with proper adults but he assumed these were marks or friends, Aziraphale was never quite that good at puzzling out which was which)

He hadn’t actually thought to ask about them- any of them until... let’s see, sometime in the 1700’s? Or was it 1800’s? Paris? Before the revolution there he’s fairly sure?

(Let it be known that the **_Principality Aziraphale, Angel, also called Fell because he’s not funny, _**_Guardian of the Eastern Gate, Bookkeeper, Lover of Knowledge, Called Fallen yet Is Not, Watcher of Magic,_ etc, etc, If we listed every single one of his Names and Titles we’d literally be here for a week— has lived for a very long time and years tend to blend when you’re working.)

Hm, it was summer certainly-too hot for anything else- and then he had spotted Crowley.

(Let it be known that things _stand out _when you see your crush in public.)

Crowley at the time had a child on her hip, one holding her hand, a few older ones, teenagers trudging after her, and _oh_ her voice had gone sweet and stern over those children, love curling from each word as she led them steadily closer to the river and the trees.

Dressed in black as always, hair long again and- well a bit dirty, and slung into a tail but still artfully curly. (Not yet done with that horrible- swirled- thing.)

Crowley looked how she always did to Aziraphale, lovely.

(Whether he’s found Crowley as a drunken sopping mess, quite literally fresh from a grave, frantic and tired from a particularly nasty assignment, or looking exhausted as she attempts to nurse a teething child, Crowley has always looked lovely to him. Bad hairstyles non withstanding.)

And Aziraphale had thought, startled and bemused,_ ‘I knew that one was rather nice now didn’t I?’_

Crowley had recognized him, promptly set her squirming burdens on the ground to run and play along the riverbank, and sauntered over to him.

Out of the cool shade and into the light.

“Aziraphale,” the demon had said, putting herself directly between Aziraphale and the children. “Nice day isn’t it?”

He decided not to be too hurt over the fact that Crowley had assumed he was a threat to a bunch of children, the serpent wasn’t even close to knowing about his part in keeping her little stowaways from The Arc safe. And with luck no one ever would. Even Crowley.

Still stung a bit.

“Where’d you get all those children Crowley?” He had asked, frowning only a bit, just for show. “You didn’t kidnap them for some mischief making did you?”

“No no..-“ Crowley laughed this soft sibilant laugh that warmed Aziraphale to the _core of his being._

“They’re mine don’t worry.”

-Aziraphale would later, when he has people (people, not necessarily humans) to tell this story to, would swear that he had heard something _break_ in the background. And then he would ramblingly ponder if _he had_ broke something, angelic wrath can be quite a bit much, ya see.

“_What_.”

“They’re my kids Aziraphale.”

“Yours.”

“Yeah? Their mothers died or didn’t want them, so I’m looking after em now.”

Mothers.

As in _multiple_.

“I’m all they’ve got Angel.”

Oh. Oh that _hurts_.

Why did he want to _scream_? Aziraphale wondered, Why did he for the first time want to _smite_ the demon where she stood- smiling warmly, hidden serpentine eyes on the children and teenagers now splashing eachother, serpentine eyes he had thought only _he_ had been privy to,— _daring_ to take advantage of human women like that? Tempting human women? Or was it more than that?

“Really? That’s so tragic.” He said instead.

“Harsh Angel.”

“Oh- you know what I mean.”

Oh-_Why did Aziraphale want to drag her closer and hiss how dare you?_

Why did he feel sick and strange just thinking about Crowley making an Effort with some human- let alone multiple?

Why did he want to force her to just stop talking about how brilliant and clever these children are for _just a second_ so he can process for at least _one moment_ the idea that Crowley has put _half demon children on this earth?_

Why did he desperately hope that he misinterpreted that entire previous dialogue?

But he didn’t _say_ any of these things, didn’t _dare_ ask any of those questions, he had _no right_ to ask them, though Crowley was eying him, no doubt sensing Aziraphale’s mild anger. (Aziraphale has such a gift for understatement.)

No instead he stuttered through the conversation, tried not to let his expression show anything he was thinking, and bid Crowley fairwell.

————-

Aziraphale took quite a few years to ask any follow up questions about Crowley and his children, not that he wasn’t thinking about it.

He had been thinking far, far, too much about it throughout the years, more than he had the _right_ to, sometimes obsessively.

Never brought it up in the intervening years, forced himself into forgetting the rampant jealous thoughts and just be with Crowley for a bit.

But when he’s alone with his thoughts?

There’s the Questions.

(Look Aziraphale has just as many questions as Crowley but Aziraphale doesn’t say things _out loud_, he _internalizes_ and _overthinks_ and _suffers_, it’s the way it’s always been.)

If _he_ has been going around making an effort while he’s been sitting here pining when would it have happened this time?

Where was he? Where was _Crowley_? Were they practically a world away from eachother or did he find his demon again on his way back from some human or another? Was he even _making an effort_ at all?

Was he just doing a very _Crowley_ thing and taking care of people who’s families abandoned them to the cold or the fire? It fits, of course, it’s Crowley, but there’s the little fact that all of Crowley’s children live about a_ century too long_?

He just had _too many_ of them, (and thinking about it all rude ones,) so he had researched. Back and forth, at times dumping the gathered material under a desk not to think about for a year or three and abruptly remembering it when he see’s Crowley again.

(He’d normally find the image of a large snake curled around the feet of small figures In his research, he found it rather adorable for an ancient symbol)

Eventually he came up with answers and more questions, but better ones.

The kind of questions he could ask his demon, that weren’t so...accusatory.

Unfortunately just when he assured himself that Crowley wouldn’t get too angry, and would of course answer his questions because he’s his counterpart in every way and they trust eachother— He got news from heaven, the first proper contact on earth that wasn’t just notes he’s had since he was assigned to stay on the planet, telling him that the apocalypse had started up, and well— he remembered. an Abrupt awful reminder that the first part of his first Name is **Principality**.

After all these years fooling around on earth...he had forgotten himself. Obviously.

He’s an _angel_, he had remembered, not some _earthly_ thing, Crowley is a _demon_ he remembered, forcefully making himself face the truth of it as if he could flinch away from it after _billions of years._ Sibilance in his voice, (soothing.) blood in his hair, (a lovely color) _serpents_ eyes. (_beautiful_) Not his counterpart in _anyway_ but apposing forces.

‘No _certainly not_,’ he had thought to himself like an _idiot_.

But still despite that awful reminder he let himself be talked into trying to stop it because well.

Crowley

And then turns out, they’ve been raising a completely different boy (though he’s sure Crowley is a little bit relieved- He may have been the one to suggest killing Warlock but Crowley raised him and so loved him, as much as demons ‘don’t love’.)

And he had said some things he regretted.

And he pushed aspects of himself down.

Regressed he supposes.

And to put it simply— and _a bit too kindly_, he panicked. Made himself forget about earthly things and Names and all the shades of morality they’ve been operating in for thousands upon thousands of years.

At the time he had wished that the Almighty didn’t change her mind last minute about the earth lasting six-thousand years, perhaps then he would have had less time to get attached.

—————

Among Aziraphale’s jealousy, deep abiding love, and fondness over the growth of humanity there are some facts I haven’t told you yet.

In this world, this exact particular one, Names are important, you may be familiar with the idea- Titles are debatably important, you must know this too. Names and Titles come with certain Expectations and Expectations are everything in this particular reality.

So.

Naming an entity something, granting a identity, is Important, granting them a Title, a job description, is Important. Humans are less affected by this than other beings, but contrastly humans are wonderful at granting such a thing as Names and Titles.

There’s ways to get titles other than humans and the beings who named you of course, just like there’s ways to get a name beyond family and people you’re obligated to know.

And also similarly it’s a lot to do with feelings that are hard to put into words.

——————-

A Long

Long 

Time ago

Aziraphale had played friendly to creatures that humans had called **gods**.

He shouldn’t of been, the other angels most definitely didn’t approve of any of them, but Aziraphale has found that being polite to the unfamiliar had never hurt, so he was, and after deciding that he liked at least a few of them he reasoned;

Well- It’s not like they could help it if humans Name things they didn’t understand. and it’s not as if they spent _that_ much time on earth. (Anymore. Well the the older “gods” actually from the planet technically retired, the ones from off world simply lost interest) Though perhaps he should have done more to _discourage_ it instead of pouring over old texts and whatever there was to find in them with a different snake than usual and some mead... nothing to be done about it now.

So- some highly advanced aliens and certain earthly spirits were Named **gods**.

**Thus They became.**

Crowley of course quite willingly got into the younger of these “gods” shenanigans, mostly ran around with a ruffian with too many sparks at his disposal. He never did understand how those two got along. By rumor that particular young man is a _brute!_ (What Aziraphale didn’t know was that the young man was and still is, very fond of snakes_._) Boy got into a lot of trouble, so Aziraphale didn’t see much of the demon in those years, as for him, he was finding rare scrolls with a scholar-mage-snake of some sort, child didn’t like humans much, (more a teenager really, but most things with a face younger than middle age register as ‘child’ to him) but Aziraphale had vital information and the young entity had a _sharp_ tongue, so they got on. 

The child called him ‘**Bookkeeper**’ in the most irritated voice he’d ever heard out a child’s mouth, and he’s met a lot of teenagers at this point due to well, _Crowley_.

(I can _hear_ you wondering, Aziraphale didn’t really get to meet Thor, he and Crowley had an argument before things started getting really busy in England, Crowley and Loki got on just fine but they had so much in common that they weren’t sure how to approach proper friendliness. Two awkward snakes.)

Aziraphale doesn’t quite recall when the Norse Lot stopped visiting earth. They just stopped coming down one day.

————-

Thing is-

Aziraphale had gained some unfortunate (depending on your view) side affects from humans, and their aforementioned Tendency to Name as well.

_It’s not as if he’d meant for it to happen._

The higher ups had thought him a bit funny _before_ they suspected him of treason and it’s not because he stutters. (Crowley too had this problem of other demons thinking him strange of course, but a demon acting strange is less odd than a angel acting strange.) he’s been off, he’s been different for awhile now, humans gifting him Titles and Names over the centuries and millennia had been changing him steadily, until, for lack of understanding, his former superiors called him **fallen**...

**Yet he was not.**

_What on earth happened there?_ He had later thought upon properly understanding. How did he let that happen? Is it his fault? He hadn’t even realized that anything at all had happened until one day long after the Not-apocalypse he just did. Titles and Names he’d been given over thousands of years had piled up and seemed to truly settle upon his being suddenly.

I suppose You could call him “_some earthly thing_” _now_, but he wouldn’t appreciate the irony of referring to his internal dialogue.

——————-

You’ll do well to note that Aziraphale had become quite fixated on the written word over the years, he probably shouldn’t be, human Knowledge came with all sorts of consequences of the good and bad variety throughout the millenniums and All of these consequences came with the scent of apples, leaving damning evidence of Crowley on each and every product of Knowledge.

And Aziraphale surrounds himself in it.

Typical Angels wouldn’t trust human Knowledge. Would never trust that anything that came of it had no price.

So they refuse to utilize Creativity and Imagination themselves. Which is a shame because imagination is quite useful for miracles. And with hell being a gross reflective image Demons did the same.

Unlike Crowley really.

Maybe it’s to do with Crowley— **why he loves it all so**?

————-

Aziraphale has been fondly encouraging humans as they started on earthly magic, since people have started making sigils, -and he’d been watching in a certain loving awe as Crowley encouraged them into transdimensional magic- as the serpent encouraged it into the very core of some of them even!

**He watched it grow.**

Watched it turn from a sprout to a multidimensional root system, earthly creatures unlike himself and Crowley tossing their lots in too, letting humans borrow power, figuring out how to let them, weaving, carving, creating, seeing-

Aziraphale watched, startled and almost _frightened_ of it all, what started as a brilliant _thing_ humans and Crowley were doing became a _world wide group project_. Humans had even, with some supernatural nudging, figured out how to directly contact heaven and hell. (Crowley took credit for one.)

Magic settled into the world colorful and brilliant and so very interesting to study. While Crowley finished up teaching, Aziraphale checked to see if things were being recorded, and he was pleased to find that humans were way ahead of them all on it.

It was a bit into the reign of King Arthur, that Aziraphale noticed that one; the fae were really testing his patience with the lot of them. And two; humans had started using the magic their ancestors were taught against the creatures that taught them.

He shouldn’t feel _betrayed_ but he did, and so did others, the proper _earthly_ things.

_They were far less sad and a bit more enraged._

A long complicated story short, Aziraphale wasn’t even there for most of it, a lot of books and scrolls were summarily burned by all sorts of fire. Holy, infernal, hellish, sacred and cleansing.

He wasn’t even aware there were other angels on earth.

(Someone, he believes Lady Pallas, made sure he got anything factual on Demon or Angel summoning that was left over quite a few years. It did little to soothe.)

—————

When it was all over and they neatly dodged their punishments, Aziraphale wasn’t exactly proud of this, but he ambushed the demon with his questions while he was safe and drinking in back of his shop, with his sunglasses somewhere else, (just at the beginning stages when he became soft around the sharp edges) with all the dogged determination of **_The Lover of Knowledge._**

Personal faintly embarrassing questions, but it was a back and forth sort of thing, asking about eachothers Names and Titles. The Titles were less personal so they started with those (and frankly they already knew most of eachothers Names) and so Aziraphale was extremely pleased that his most pressing question was answered within the first ten.

“So- **_The Mother Serpent_**? Really?”

“Whaat? Where’d you hear that one?” That smile was one of Crowley’s more evasive ones, a fearful barring of teeth, a crooked fanged smile. Aziraphale could only imagine that this is the smile that the denizens of hell saw in each and every meeting.

“That’s a Name of yours then?”

“We-elll- not technically, to me anyways- always felt more like a Title some humans gave me a while back.” His face relaxed a bit, crooked grin turning sweet, once he realized he wasn’t under any scrutiny. Well- the hellish kind anyway.

Aziraphale tried not to let any of his long held jealousy, or the premature relief, get into his voice, “The Title has been showing up numerous times in my research,-just little projects of mine, you understand- they say you take in children others have abandoned?”

“Chk, Angel I’ve been adopting chi- chill- kids! Since ehhh abit after the flood. You of all beings would know.”

“_All_ your children are adopted?” He attempted to ask nonchalantly.

The serpents eyes narrowed “Angel I don’t think-“

Serpentine eyes widened at whatever face Aziraphale was making

“-_You_-“ The serpent choked

“I...?”

“Why are you-“ _Jealous_.

Aziraphale shook his head and gave him a _look_.

Wide wobbling eyes and all.

Crowley swallowed, the motion looked stiff.

“_All_ my children are adopted, I love and care for them when others won’t. I swear.”

“You swear by?”

“All the Names I’ve got on me?”

“I think I’ll believe you then.”

—————-

Aziraphale had to be reassured about this several times throughout their first free week since —well a long time ago before anyone understood anything. But eventually it really settled into his mind that they were adopted, and it was fine.

There was a different question about a name he had for the longest time.—

—“Where’d you pick up the Name Anthony anyway?”

But he supposed they couldn’t have all of eachother.

His poor Serpent flinched.

“-_Drop_ it Angel.”

“Too much?”

“Just _hurts_ still, is all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently my inner philosopher emerged and y’all get a vague lore dump with Az.


	4. List of Natasha being Weird and It’ll be a Good Morning I promise.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Emotions! Lotta emotions, I just finished editing this. Tis late.

Clint knows, a _lot_ of weird shit about Natasha Romanov.

Now, he isn’t the only one who knows weird shit about her

Red Room must’ve known plenty about her,

And SHIELD medical has long since come to the conclusion that they were trying to make Natasha a literal snake person with the shit he’s been reporting to them.

But Haaha, he knows a lot more than they do.

He caught the assassin, so he was put in charge of her for like- three years. (along with Phil, but that was more like being supervised on his first time supervising.) After that she became his partner proper, his counterpart in a lotta ways, he thinks when he’s feeling incredibly sappy.

It’s not his fault that SHIELD medical only asked after ‘biological quirks’ that could be dangerous for her, not his fault the Red Room inspired secrets and fear instead of respect and honesty, and certainly not his fault that he knows _anything at all._

Nah, that comes down to Natasha, since she’s the one whose decided that she trusts him. He has no idea when that happened, but he’s done his best to live up to that trust.

So Clint doesn’t tell their bosses that Natasha’s hair can’t be cut or dyed or even styled unless she absolutely wants it to be.

(Ya know those ‘I woke up like this’ people on social media? Yeah, she literally can roll out of bed with perfect hair, if he had longer hair he’s pretty sure he’d be burning with jealousy.)

He doesn’t make mention of the fact that the Black Widow has little groups of scales that spread across her hands when she’s freaking the fuck out.

He doesn’t mention that Nat can just- become practically invisible, that with suitable focus no one will even look at her. Not even him.

(She actually hates doing that one? “It’s A waste of my training as an assassin and a insult to my years as a spy, Clint.” His friend kinda has a pride thing. She’ll use it for escape purposes only if there’s absolutely no other way.)

And Clint definitely doesn’t say, “Guys- guys- you’re never gonna believe this, Nat can just make allll the alcohol in her system disappear from her body. It’ll uh, probably end up splashing somewhere else in the building though so not much a party trick. We tried getting the alcohol to just get back in the bottle but like- it just freakin- splashed all over my poor table.”

It’s easy to just not say things, let them thinkwhatever they want and damn the fucking conclusions they place upon you.

Simple not trusting others when you’re living in a building full of spies, and he _did_ have to live there instead of his apartment for the three years he was required to watch the newbie.

Thing is,

Now he and Nat aren’t living in tiny rooms one stacked under the other in a building full of spies, experimenting with Natasha’s weird abilities- some very much not snake related, and refusing to trust anyone more than Phil.

Phil’s gone.

No, now they live with the Avengers, now they are Avengers.

And the other Avengers know weird things too.

About Natasha

About him too but,

He worries- And you can’t blame him either. There’s an “Us v Them” mentality written on his soul, and it’s only gotten louder when he met Natasha and read the cold light of acceptance and guilt in her eyes.

So when he sees Nat lookin like she’s gonna slip, or tell, or just not bother hiding- he watches, and worries silently, and doesn’t say,

“it’s your decision, you’re free to make these decisions, if you want to make friends that know you like I know you, it’s okay, and if they react badly I’ll still be here.”

But hell, she’ll hear it anyway

——————

Natasha Romanov rolled out of bed, and instantly realized too late that she’s been tucked into the blanket burrito while she slept again, and thus can’t kick out any of her limbs to stop her face from hitting the ground.

So her face hit the ground.

That, despite physics, will not bruise. However it _still hurt._

She unrolled herself, threw the blanket back at the bed (with a bit too much force but the walls here can take it) and forced herself to go shower and grab the insulated suit, the one Tony made.(It’s as its comfortable as it is fight ready, she couldn’t ask for better, which is good because she didn’t ask.)

She just _cannot_ keep sleeping so she’s gotta get up.

On other days, Natasha will stare into the mirror- stare with a strange kind of focus, on her teeth. Fangs only as big and obvious as she wants them to be, but still the fangs don’t ever go away.

Then she’ll examine her wrists, more specifically the band of tiny scales around each wrist, could be mistaken for tattoos sure, but she’ll focus and they’ll go away.

She’ll glare her hair into submission, blink the snake out of her eyes, will her nails to look less claw-like then, and only then, will she leave her room.

Today, Natasha has had several nightmares in succession to eachother and is _not in the fucking mood._

————————

Sunrise had not yet come, but it was close. She could feel it in the air, soon all the stars would fade from view, though they’d still be there, and the first orange stained lights of sunrise would pierce the windows. She’d normally hope to catch those first rays when she wakes this early, but today she needs her _tea_.

Needs to hold a warm cup of her ridiculously fancy tea brand and breathe the taste of it. She needs to forget the images of blood on her hands, (out damned spot) thousands of corpses of dead children, (faces all painful and familiar yet she didn’t know them) freezing cold biting at her fingers as she was dragged back to the Red Room through the snow, a million light year free style dive as she burned_ burned **burned**_—

_—Where_ on this _earth_ is the _tea_?

Practically _her entire upper half_ was in the cabinet and she still couldn’t find the damn tea and she probably looks like a creature straight from hell and—

She tugged herself out of the cabinet, scaled, clawed feet hitting the counter with a scraping thump.

“JARVIS? What happened to my tea?”

Her head tilted up to the ceiling with a glare.

**“Forth cabinet on the right, Might I suggest you use a _stool_ instead of the counter Agent Romanov?”**

She shrugged stepping over the stovetop to the other part of the counter “Too much effort Jarvis.”

“Too much effort? I saw you kill some weird humanoid thing with those legs the other day and you’re telling me that getting down from the counter and grabbing a stool is too hard on em?” Tony called lightly while wandering into the kitchen, the communal area is it’s own floor so she supposes it’s safe to be loud, but it’s far _far_ too early for noises, it’s still too dark. She didn’t flinch, but she almost did.

“Oh,” he said,

She assumed he saw her feet, she wouldn’t know, her upper body was currently in the forth cabinet on the right. She however could taste confusion, not apples (almost everything Tony does gives off the smell of apples) surprisingly, more like...citrus. “Why are you wearing a jumpsuit without boots?” She blinked. She had _actually forgotten_ about _shoes_...It’s _that_ kind of morning isn’t it? “Wouldn’t you like to know, Stark.” She finally grabbed the damn tea, and let her feet hit the counter again.

“This is why we call you a cat ya know,” The inventor said as she hopped down and started looking for her kettle. She has to specify _hers_, because _Bruce’s_ brand of tea is absolutely _disgusting_, and he loves it so much that the flavor probably permanently stained the inside of his kettle long ago.

“I’m not a cat Tony I thought we agreed on this,”

There’s the kettle!

She started on her tea, not turning around yet. She was pretty sure Tony’s never seen her snake eyes so she’s erring on caution.

“Yeah, Yeah, I got it the first time, you’re a snake creature whose heart was carved by Russian ice 60 years ago blah blah, you’re really dramatic when you’re drunk you know that?”

“I normally don’t bother to get drunk while drinking socially so I wouldn’t know.”

“Right, your endeavors in staining your floor with vodka, I almost forgot you did that, gotta forgive me Nat it’s early.” Clint, from the noises, is climbing out the vent with the sort of flexibility that could only be learned from being a circus brat with very accommodating contortionist teachers, she’s absolutely sure.

She heard the lightest thump of bare feet landing on the kitchen tile. She was right.

“_Barton_,” Tony asked, voice slipping into that strange matriarchal tone, as if he’s going to drag her friend right back to bed if he didn’t provide a good enough reason to be up. “Why the hell are you awake?”

She opened her mouth slightly, might as well rat Clint out if he’s lying.

“Why’re _you_?” Petulant.

“..._Nightmares_.” Exhaustion.

“Oh, Same man.” Hm. Lingering fear, only sour traces, quickly fading away. Probably not lying then.

She turns around, eyes closed as she breathes in the tea, willing away the feelings of burning alive and being frozen and blood stained and mourning. And said, very quietly,

“Me too. Too many.”

She slit her eyes open.

The tone Tony had that tastes of something like...well she’s not sure, Fades right back into the typical flippancy, “...Eh fair.” and he slumps over the table. Waiting for the coffee to brew.

“Anyone in this building _not_ awake due to trauma induced nightmares? JARVIS?”

**“The staff and office workers went home long ago, Mr.Odinson will be coming back from his meeting when the sun is actually up and Miss Potts has left for the weekend to visit family if you’ll recall Sir? So, No. No one in the building is ‘_not_ awake due to trauma induced nightmares’ Dr. Banner is coming down as we speak and it seems like the Captain is testing out your new punching bag.”**

No ones looking. Relax Natasha.

The mechanic perked up from his bemused exhaustion with a grin “tell me how long they last, I haven’t had a challenge like this since Natasha admitted her good suit is uncomfortable.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I _inferred_, Miss Romanov.”

“You _assumed_, I didn’t ask.”

“Nat, you don’t ask for _anything willingly_, ever. You ask _about_ things, and they’re _never really questions_.”

Now they’re both looking. She relaxed, they don’t care, it’s fine.

“Agent,” Natasha glances at Bruce as he shuffles in, “Doctor,” he looked as tired and unhappy to be awake as the rest of them. His eyes are the slightest bit green tinged. Jarvis was right, she supposed.

He past her spot against the counters towards the stove.

“You haven’t taken _my_ kettle for that tea of yours yeah?”

Her small smile (she hadn’t even noticed she was smiling) turned into a crooked grin, fangs bared.

“Your tea is utterly _disgusting_ Doctor and I refuse to touch your kettle on principle.”

“_Oh no_. My feelings.”

She huffed, amused.

——————

Tony and Clint will start fighting for the coffee pot, Steve eventually comes down and Announces that the latest line of _Stark Punching Bags(tm)_ lasted an hour each and they _allllmost_ survived his work out, when the morning light finally comes Thor will show and delightedly tell them all about what or who he was talking to today.

Bruce will laugh, Steve will act like a member of the team for once, they’ll chase off the nightmares together with interaction of those that won’t judge.

They’ll all feel safe for once.

It’ll be a good morning.

——————

Crowley startled out of bed, realizing too late that all his limbs were tangled in his blanket therefore he cannot grab the edge of the bed before falling.

So he fell.

To spite physics, this will not bruise. _It still fucking hurt_!

He hissed out a breath.

And heard a bubbling fuckin chuckle.

He glared up at the angel, sitting there looking lovely and calm _how dare he_—

He’s on a chair next to his bed.

_Aziraphale_. Is just- sitting there. Next to his bed. Smiling down at him with that little mean glint in his eyes, green right now, rare color for him.

Bastard thinks this is funny.

“Why were you...watching me sleep?”

“More so like waiting for you to wake up,” the angel said archly as Crowley attempted to free himself from his blanket prison. “Although, you woke much earlier than I thought you would...” green eyes narrowed, the mean glint quickly turning focused.

Crowley finally popped one arm free as Aziraphale slowly said, “...Nightmares again, dear?”

Crowley covered his eyes with his newly freed arm, and groaned “One after another, they didn’t all make sense is the worst thing.” 

“I keep telling you that dreams in general are the worst part.”

“Oh please- you’re just mad that Hypnos introduced me to something before you did.”

“He introduced you to sleep not dreaming. And I wouldn’t call that an introduction, more like kidnapping.”

“Well— Right, If we’re getting chatty this early we need tea or something.”

With a click of the serpent’s fingers the blanket was off and his shades were back on their customary perch, hiding his eyes from view. He yanked himself up and started to leave, he thought that the angel would get up and follow but he was just... sitting there, staring after him. Eyes turned onyx dark and shiny.

Crowley paused at the door, and tasted the air. Longing? Why? He’s...

He should slow down a tad, suns not even up yet.

He walked back to the chair and held a hand out to his...something, he doesn’t know, he supposed the right thing to say is His Angel.

Said angel hesitated. “C’mon.” Crowley breathed out, wiggling his fingers and wearing a crooked fanged grin. (“Don’t gotta pretend with me, don’t gotta lie to me, especially don’t have to hide from me, Angel. I’m right here, willing to walk right back if I run too fast.” He didn’t say. Aziraphale heard him anyway.)

Aziraphale’s palm clasped his and Crowley pulled him out of the probably miracled in chair.

Out the room to the kitchen.

——————

He miracled up the tea in an instant, cups appearing in both their hands as they sat.

Steam still rising.

”Is it kidnapping, Angel, if I agreed to go with him under false pretenses?”

”_Yes. That is exactly kidnapping Crowley._”

”Oh.”

”Honestly, if one of your children asked something like that you’d be scolding them and informing them in an instant, but when it comes to yourself—!”

”—He told me you’d gotten in trouble, see, not really sure how he knew I knew you, I followed him down to Hades... good thing you found me Angel, he likes keeping the pretty ones asleep. Got so distracted by you he kinda forgot about it.”

”...That’s strange, I could’ve sworn he was distracted by the _trident in his windpipe_, unless you’re trying to flatter me dear.”

“Eh maybe he was distracted by both, you remember how the Greek ones were back then!”

”Mmm, Warlock narrated that paragraph off his phone to me the other week and the phrasing was crude yet accurate? Hm. Ah yes, ‘Horny and Stupid’.”

“Exactly—Wait Warlock called and you didn’t _tell me?!_”

”He needed references and advice on Boy Trouble, seemed rather embarrassed, but assumedly figured it was me or you.”

”Ohhhhhh. Yeah, I’ve no idea on either of those things good call.”

——————

They would have tea, talk, and get into several philosophical arguments, at once.

Crowley would make plans to visit his daughter, properly introduce his Raven to his Angel. Aziraphale would savor his tea and his demons company, and agree to meet this “young lady” of Crowley’s,

“if _you_ raised her I’m sure she has few manners and too many plants?”

“You _help_ with one child and you start with the manners— She runs the poisonous plant shop in Tadfield. Can’t even _think_ of a better spot for her to have settled on.”

“Oh, Vera Crowley’s Dangerous Exotic Plants?”

“For somebody’s sake- Why did she name it that way? Woman makes her place sound like a location in a book.”

“Darling You have read my sign haven’t you?”

Crowley will smile, Aziraphale would let himself fall in love a bit more.

Crowley will forget the Nightmares by the time the sun rises.

Aziraphale doesn’t forget anything about Crowley, so _he_ won’t.

They would have a good morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guess what fun fact Natasha has never read or watched Shakespeare ever.


	5. Some Mention of Crowley’s Kids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’m starting to think I’m gonna have to write short summaries of these OCs life stories when it comes up.  
Ah well.  
Oc’s!

Tomorrow morning, an Angel and a Demon are going to a plant shop in Tadfield.

Tonight, the moon is full, and they’ve got wine bottles ready, but they’re not drunk at all yet.

They’ve been resting their hands near eachother for twenty minutes.

They’ve been sitting on something other than their mutually requited feelings.

“You don’t mention your other children anymore.”

Crowley pauses the motion of the wine glass to his mouth. Aziraphale holds his breath.

“You didn’t want to hear about em.”

The demon finished his glass in a gulp.

“Well... I want to, _now_.”

The demon smiled, a wide fake smile that hid his fangs and had a hint of mockery in it. He put the glass down on the table.

“Nah Angel, I can go on about my flock of brats for hours, you don’t need to put up with that, not when we’re gonna go see one of them tomorrow.”

The angel huffed. Not amused by the fake smile that he helped construct. And slightly guilty that Crowley still feels the need to use tools of defense against him. Only slight, the serpent _is_ a bit paranoid after all.

“It is _not_ about putting up with it, I should have been paying attention _back then_, when they were _alive_, Crowley.”

Crowley blinked. Wasn’t expecting that.

“What?”

Aziraphale fidgeted, there are things he doesn’t like saying out loud, but there was wine as an excuse, the moon is full, and they’re visiting someone in the morning.

Why not?

“You love your children, so very much,”

“Ngh.”

“—And because I was just so. _Jealous_. I’ve completely missed this entire different aspect of you. I’ve completely ignored a part of you, a Name of yours, an entire _Name_ all because I was worried that you might have brought them into this world _biologically_.”

“_Angel_—“

“Oh, just. _Go on_, talk about them. I know you want to.”

Crowley nodded slowly, hesitation making the movements stiff and ticking.

“Ahem. Ah. 1700’s, I found Will. Well his name wasn’t Will when I found him, and he found me,but ya know sometimes ya need a new name. Was learning about bird names at the time and I called the brat a _Red Billed Finch_ when he was running away with my money. He laughed, tripped, and Eh. I kinda just steadily adopted him over time.”

“What are your standards for _that_ dearest?”

“I legitimately don’t know, I just— _Know_, like I know when you need me. Ya know?”

“I _don’t_, but that’s interesting.”

“Turned out he was a proper orphan, never had any family his whole life so he could never really bring himself to call me anything but Crowley. I started just calling him Red Bill, but he started joking that he’d prefer Red William. So I called him that. I think he was just happy that I actually listened to him about calling him a boys name.”

“Poor dear must’ve loved you.”

“I can’t sense _love_, I don’t know, he _might’ve_, lot of issues my Will had. I’m just glad he managed to get himself married to someone who understood and managed to live well.”

And way, way, too long. Neither of them said. They heard eachother anyway after all.

Crowley was silent for a moment, thinking. (You ever have so many things you never get to say, and when you’re finally allowed to say em there’s just too many options?)

Crowley clicked his fingers suddenly.

Found something to say.

“_Maurine_! that _Magpie_ used to snatch _my jewelry_ to just to _look at_, she adored shiny things. Got herself a career in modeling and could buy her own but she’d still take mine...”

He missed the Magpie, she had a ‘try me’ attitude.

“Is that why you don’t wear much of it anymore?”

“You noticed?”

Aziraphale smiled, bit fond.

“I always notice.”

“Oh.”

Crowley frowned now.

Speaking of the missed.

“...Kassandra _constantly_ gave off the taste of Apples,”

Aziraphale raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I’m _serious_ Aziraphale, constantly. She was so fucking clever. Made me teach her about the universe, made me show her how to see other parts of the world, made me give her _vision_, she wanted to learn everything, every. single. _thing_. I gave her a tiny insignificant bit of essence so she could really get the metaphysical properties, and— she _Knew_ _things_ Aziraphale, like we do.”

“Wasn’t afraid to talk about it either and, _maybe_ that’s why everyone thought she was fucking crazy, my scary Osprey.”

“Wait _Kassandra_?”

“_The Last Princess of Troy_, yeah.”

“I didn’t know you were even _in_ that city!”

“Well honestly, I didn’t know you were on the Greek side,_ I thought_ you were just hanging out with Asclepius again, turned out you’d been hanging out with _Athena_.”

“Speaking of _her_, you ought to call her, she found another demonic summons and I very much don’t like being your middle man when you two fight.”

“What’s a few months _to us?_ I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it.”

“Your funeral. Speaking of, I never found out what happened to Kassandra’s body.”

“What.”

“She wanted me to get some people out see, demanded really. And by the time I got back to the tower...My Osprey was gone. I looked. And _looked_. And _hah_, by the time I found her some—“

Crowley hissed something old and squeezed Aziraphale’s hand.

“—I cannot find a strong enough word in English damnit, _fucking_ _cut her through with an axe_!”

(‘Oh. Right.’ Aziraphale thought, remembering ‘_Electra’s mother_—‘)

“—Oh my dear. that must’ve been. horrifying.”

Their hands were properly entwined now.

“I couldn’t. She was just. I saw _her kids_, they had _her eyes_, they reeked of apples while they were sobbing their lungs out. I don’t know _what else_ they might of been but her kids. That _woman_ was going to _kill_ them too, so I took them. I flew off, But I looked back and my Students _fucking body_ was gone...”

“That’s... strange.”

“It is, looked all over for the body. Dropped her kids off with Aeneas first, they were friends, she would’ve approved I think. I searched and searched and I just couldn’t fucking find it...”

They drifted off into a troubled silence.

Then Crowley thank goodness piped up again.

“Where was I again? _John’s_ still alive, works in an _American_ church now because he’s an annoying little Dove, but I’m pretty sure it’s not spite running that life decision. Kid is _always_ worried about others, I have no idea where he gets that.”

“Mhhmmm. I’m _certain_ I have _no idea_ where he has acquired such a concern for other people’s needs.”

“I don’t like your tone _at all,_”

——————-

They continued in this manner deep into the night.

——————

Vera Crowley’s Dangerous Exotic Plants happens to be the only coal bricked building in Tadfields small shopping district.

This is a coincidence.

There are two small (seemingly concrete) statues of a coiled snake on either side of the front door of the building. Little gem set eyes glinting whenever anyone passed.

These are warnings.

Of course those warnings don’t apply to the one who put them there in the first place so Crowley easily glares the things into submission and miracles the door unlocked.

There’s no question of if his daughter is awake yet when it’s just barely sunrise, Vera has been a workaholic for about 60 years.

———————

Vera Crowley was tending to the oleander bushes in the back when she heard the shops door open.

(A strange echoing ringing, a swift swish, and a slight clatter as it hit the wall behind the door lightly.)

_Thing is_ Vera had _locked_ that particular door, she wasn’t ready to open this early. She had seed packets to label and send off, flower bushes to prep for transfer, debating with herself if she should be adding lilies to her stock or no— to do, wards to prep, stock to take, plants to tend to!

And, it’s just, ever since... the night she lost her family. She’s been very, _very, _cautious not to slack off when it comes to safety.

She has alarm systems, (of the magical and technological variety) a lock, a cursed knife in her coat. (that according to mother was extremely hard to obtain and that she better appreciate that he’s managed to find it)

So, for a moment, Vera froze, fear zinging up her spine.

Before rationale came in. She only has one person who visits her by letting themselves in after all.

Only one person whose abilities she can _hear_ as if the sound of reality being slightly tweaked was a _bell_.

Mother.

“Oh! Well these are _lovely_.”

And a guest whose ruining her flowers with undeserving praises. Wonderful.

Despite her wanting very, _very_, badly to stop whomever the hell was trying to spoil her plants, and of course wanting to greet her mother—The shop keeper took her time stripping off her gloves, scolding the oleander, praising the buttercups, and thoroughly washing her hands. Not even an uninvited guest was going to interrupt her while she prepped for the day.

You need to be careful when you work with poison.

If mother was going to just show up with a random tag along out of nowhere, he can come find her himself.

She huffed to her self, finished washing up, and grabbed new gloves from the box under the sink.

Once she was done with that, she turned to leave—

—To see the figure of her mother right there.

“_Raven_.”

“_Ruby_!” She jolted—he knows it startles her when he does that!

Her mother snickered. “Hiding from me are you?”

“Wha— No! I’m actually busy _unlike you_.”

He leaned against the wall outside her bathroom, an exaggerated frown on his face.

“How busy can you _possibly be_ when the only things you sell could have a chance of _killing you—_and when you sell that in _Tadfield_ of all places?”

She rolled her eyes and walked past him to get to the stairs but he slinked in front of them. Silly old thing her mother is, he left a wide enough space for her to sidle past if she so wished. So instead she shrugged, looked up at her mother and said, amused,

“I think you’re forgetting something _Mister_ Crowley.”

“Now what’s that, _Miss_ Crowley?”

“Firstly, Humans _love_ pretty things that could kill them.”

“...Right.”

“_Second_,” Vera swatted at him “Not _all_ of my plants are inherently deadly!” He put his hands up in surrender, she stopped swatting.

“So! I’m kept in business just fine, though not _all_ my customers are _human_, that’s your fault yes?”

“...I might have _bragged_,” Mother looked if possible, even more amused, smug too.

Vera however has been having to deal with an _irritating_ and _powerful_ demon monkey,An irate cat goddess, and several other entities, for years.

“_Mother_.”

“Look— I didn’t come here to get scolded by my own daughter. Firstly, C’mere,”

She was drawn, reluctantly, into a hug. Vera was still a bit annoyed, but she hasn’t seen her mother in a month, so she hugged him back, just as tight.

Vera’s voice was now muffled due to suit jacket, “Is the other reason due to the person _spoiling my babies_?”

Crowley’s voice wasn’t muffled at all despite his cheek smushed against her hair and glasses digging into her head, which is just unfair. “He _is_ the reason honestly. So’er you.”

“Be _clear_ mother.”

She can just _feel_ him rolling his eyes.

“He’s very..._important_ to me and I’d like him to meet you.”

She reluctantly drew back from the hug, and met her mother’s eyes. Glasses askew his gleaming yellow eyes were more visible, so their gazes actually met for a moment before he swiftly adjusted them.

Crowley had never really told her what he was exactly, she has several running theories, but she just doesn’t know how to muster up the courage to ask, despite her mother’s policy on questions. (‘Ask away, might not always answer, but ask anyway.’)

Its due to the way her formative years were spent getting _scolded_ for the very questions her mother _encourages_ she’s sure.

She sighed, then nodded to herself.

“Okay, lets go stop him from wreaking havoc on my system.”

She ducked past her mother and started down the stairs, he followed.

“Still disturbs me that I showed you the _proper_ way to discipline those plants and you just go ahead and mix _praises_ into it, you strange little innovator.”

“I’ve found that if I’m going to scold something for its failures I might as well praise others for their victories yes? Inciting rivalries and all.”

They hit the bottom of the stairs.

“There’s My Raven—“ A wicked crooked smile slides over his face as he reaches to mockingly pinch her cheek.

She ducks away from him into the front room of the shop, to see the _person_ there, petting and cooing at one of her plants as if they were a dog and not a _poisonous plant_!

_Why do entities like touching her plants?!_

“—_Aey! Mister!_ I’m gonna have to ask you _not to touch _the plants!”

“Oh- I’m sure it’s alright, look it’s not even—“

“—_All_ the plants in my shop are _toxic_ in some manner, even if there aren’t _immediate effects_ there could be some later! I have those warning labels in _several languages_ for a reason. Not even _mentioning_ the _gloves at the door_!” (they’re free gloves you see, a _certain bunch of children_ still sometimes pop in to take some. Well, bunch of preteens but all the same.)

“Ah, so it is...oh, your Greek is impeccable young lady.” He smiled kindly, as if he hadn’t called a relatively small grey haired woman “young”. Definitely an entity.

She nodded.

_“I must assume that’s your influence dear boy?_” The being shouted off to the side, somewhere in the vicinity of the yarrow.

“Agk!” There was the slight leafy sound of several plants being knocked over by her spying mother’s clumsy surprised flail.

She closed her eyes. There goes the yarrow.

The entity seems to have lit up at hearing her mother startling, eyes a pale shade of green when they were a calm blue a moment ago. He looked back over at her, a conspiring expression on his face.

“Your parent likes to think he’s _sneaky_ dear girl.”

Her Mother, clumsily shaking off stalks of yarrow, stumbled over, coming to a slightly dizzy stop next to the entity. Then turns an annoyed gaze at him.

“_I can be sneaky_!”

“I’ve known you since this _planet became_ and I’ve never seen you _actually_ be sneaky.”

“I was a _spy_ Angel—“

“—you _were_, as in _past tense_ my dear—“

“Oh I’m sorry I was fired for _saving you_.”

“It is not as if saving eachother and getting in trouble for it is _new for us_, I retain that you’re bad at sneaking without _cheating_.”

“You _cheat_ as much as I do!”

“That doesn’t-“

She blew a sharp whistle.

They Both looked at Vera, startled, they had forgotten about her. like fools.

“Not sorry about that. _At all._ Mother you wanted to introduce me?”

She did her best to assume a stern glare, it didn’t tend to work when supernatural beings end up in her shop, but she’s found that it’s best to act displeased more than friendly or apathetic. The second and third might make them think she doesn’t mind them being there.

And she _does_.

_Mind_ that is.

_A lot_.

Why do so many supernatural beings need so many poisonous plants anyway?

Her Mother came back to himself and shook his head.

“Right, right, Raven, this is...” he seemed to be waiting for the entity to fill in the gap.

“Ah, Aziraphale. It’s...Good to meet you Young Lady, your Mother has told me..._a lot_ about you.”

He offered a hand, she shook it, smiling wryly.

“I’ve been told that there was bragging.”

“Well, yes, alright, there’s been bragging, but he loves you-“

“Hey.”

“So much-“

“_Angel_.”

“—So I don’t mind it so much nowadays.”

“Well Mister Aziraphale, I’m Vera Crowley, and I’m going to have to tell you not to compliment my plants if there’s nothing to compliment. I have a system.”

“_Tch_, you and your Mother.”

————————————

So Tony has a secret

—————————

A small column of fire spat up from the middle of a lab table

Tony sighed. “_Again_? Really? Can’t you come up with something else?” He wasn’t even mad about it anymore. It doesn’t _spread, _and He’s pretty sure he prefers this to the singing, that’s certainly not a part of any the songs he picked, cracking out of his speakers but the fire is _genuinely_ getting old.

_“What, you’d rather I do what ghosts do? Drive you mad? Stop your fragile heart? Terrify you?”_

A beat of silence.

“Nah, My brains already doing all that to itself.”

_“I wouldn’t do that anyway, I’m a Specter not a Ghost.”_

“_Whatever_ you say Kass.”

—————————

It’s par for the course with the turn his life has been taking honestly.

He’s being haunted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun Fact, Athena back when she was in her power, accidentally wrecked some of Crowley’s kids.  
Medusa, Arachne, Kassandra...
> 
> So they don’t particularly get along.


	6. Chapter 6

Okay so, maybe it started when she made a project explode.

Or maybe it started when he first heard her speaking.

No no

Tony knows where this started.

When he was in the wormhole.

Look he has extra oxygen for flying high but,

He’d been wasting it all day.

Then he took himself and a nuke into a space portal.

He fully expected to die.

Had a good stint as a hero but he’s the redemption story that can only end in death.

He saw two things surrounded by the corpses of those ships.

_Even more ships_, because the universe fucking hates them apparently.

And the sketchy outline of a person looking at him.

Staring at him with the eyes he sees in the mirror.

———————

_He died up there, you see._

_Tony doesn’t think about it._

———————

_He’s somewhere cold and dark, and someone is leading him out— dragging him really, and she doesn’t look at him no matter how he calls at her, he wants to know what’s going on as the light at the end of the tunnel—_

—Hulk is ROARING IN HIS FACE JESUS

———————

Tony had _thought_ that the ghost had been some sort of near death hallucination. And he intended to leave it at that, he intended to just focus on the team and maybe figure how to restrain the urge to strangle Romanov.

Must’ve been seeing some sort of reflection when he saw eyes like his own.

Eyes like his mom’s.

Just a reflection.

_Really?_ A small part that had lived through enough weird shit, asked, annoyed.

_Yes_. The poor tattered skeptic in him hissed.

_Of fucking what?_ A cruel betraying part laughed.

At Any rate he figured the specter couldn’t be real the first time he looked at her and did his best to ignore her.

Kass’s response to this was making small columns of fire sprout from nothingness, asking him ceaseless questions, telling him shit so ridiculous he couldn’t even laugh at it— she did her level best to annoy him into talking to her.

Tony watched the bots throwing whatever they could into the fires to see if they’d spread, didn’t respond to her questions with more questions (though he wanted to), and tried not to react to the weird shit she says. He was mostly succeeding.

Then,

———————-

Tony was fixing this... project. He doesn’t remember what it was supposed to be anymore, something to do with chemicals. But he was working on it when the onesided (for once on someone else’s end.) argument they’d been kinda having came up.

“_Stop ignoring me_.” Tony continued to ignore Kassandra, (as she calls herself) firmly telling himself not to turn around as she looms ominously behind him. You’re not supposed to engage with your hallucinations right? Is that a rule? Why hasn’t he researched hallucinations? He needs to do that as soon as possible...

Maybe later.

(Researching makes it seem _real_)

He risked peeking behind him (because he’s a curious idiot.) And promptly regretted it.

The hallucination is practically a sketchline of a person that stares at him with eyes the exact same color and shape as his. He can’t really focus on anything else, the silhouette moves and shifts but it’s like a rough animation. It’s just too vague to his eyes. And boy does he not like the fact that he can’t find much a shape in the figure, but he tries to remind himself that it’s just a thing his brain came up with to torture itself so of course he can’t look at it right?

(He doesn’t actually know if that’s true. He’s scared to say anything about it.)

“JARVIS, run the numbers Bruce did.”

She slid into view on the other side of the work table.

Like something out of a horror movie.

Just on the other side of his screen, he could see her eyes.

They’re his eyes. Why the hell are they his eyes?

“_Anthony_,”

Kassandra calls.

She calls Tony by his whole name, all the time, he is never sure how to react to this. So he refuses to.

**“They’re completely accurate Sir.”**

The ghost slammed her hands on the table now between them, “_Listen to me_!” he saw a small column of fire burst up on the empty table behind her. God, he wished she would quit that. He opened his mouth to tell her so—

But

No

He spoke to JARVIS instead.

“Course they are, hey could you play another reading of the Iliad? I’m trying to figure out why my hallucination insists on being called Kassandra. I didn’t even like that book.”

_“You have been ignoring me for six days! What did I do to you other than save your sorry spirit?!”_

See, he isn’t even the spiritual type, what the hell?

**“Sir, the entity in your workshop has been creating columns of fire, I do not believe it is a hallucination —“**

“_Look_,“ he interrupted.

Tony closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. (He is going to have so much grey hair soon with this kinda stress, he can just tell.)

“I _refuse_ to believe that there’s a ghost in my workshop. I just refuse. She’s a hallucination, I’m fucking finally losing it. Maybe it was the wormhole. Maybe it was the stress of dealing with Romanov. Maybe it was the many, many nightmares. I don’t know, but at this point in my life, I’d rather believe I’ve absolutely lost it than acknowledge the _space ghost_ named Kassandra.”

_“For the last time, Anthony Stark, I AM NOT A GHOST!”_

There’s the sound of twin explosions that burst to life on two different sides of him,

He’s under the table before he knows what he’s doing.

It’s not that dark under the table, the floor is linoleum and the lights are bright. But, it’s under something at least. It’s somewhere to hide and breathe.

Try to breathe.

_Trying_ to breathe.

(He choked.)

Just trying to breathe.

(He almost breathed in and immediately started coughing.)

_Why is it so hard to breathe?!_

A hand grabs his wrist.

The hand feels like static, but he—

He—

He can breathe now.

He opened his eyes— when did he close his eyes? And her eyes, his eyes, his mom’s eyes, gleam back at him._ “I shouldn’t have done that.”_

“You. You shouldn’t of. Just uh. How did you stop the-“ He motions at his chest, accidentally brushes the reactor, and flinches. She’s very close and very staticky, like hovering a hand over a TV screen. He’s pretty sure your brain can trick you into thinking that something is touching you. But. Hallucinations can’t make you stop panicking.

He closes his eyes, packs the pure _what the hell?!_ into a box to take out and look at later, opens his eyes and repeats, coherently this time, “How did you stop that? That’s not something people can just turn off at will.”

Her eyes squint up in a fake smile.

_“You really wouldn’t believe me there, Anthony.”_

He doesn’t like that.

Genuinely he doesn’t.

But he kinda believes her.

He recalled what exactly the Mythical Kassandra’s deal was, and just then, he suddenly thinks he gets why she didn’t appreciate him ignoring her.

If Norse myths can be real with a twist, why not Greek?

———————-

“JARVIS?”

**“Sir?”**

“Please Tell me the project isn’t busted.”

**“I’m afraid the entity has destroyed it in offense.”**

_“...”_

“Kassandra.”

**“Sir?”**

“Update JARVIS, you’re to refer to the entity as Kassandra or Specter.”

———————-

So he’s being haunted.

Kassandra isn’t exactly invasive after that, even if she still causes fires that don’t spread, and somehow throws her voice into his speakers when she’s singing along with his work playlist.

The questions seemed to turn into conversation, with him responding while he works.

_“So what purpose is that going to serve?”_

“It’s a material that’s gonna be flexible and insulated, s’for Natasha, you remember her? Came in here about a heat lamp?”

_“Of course I do.”_

“I’m not questioning your intelligence Miss Seer, that was months ago.”

_“Still.”_

“Well, good. Anyway apparently she tends to have a slightly lower than average temperature-“

_“I know.”_

“Okay okay geez—“

It’s decent company he has to say.

He’s not sure how to explain her to anyone yet, and he doesn’t really bring up introducing her to the team or anyone but the bots. She doesn’t indicate that she wants to meet any of them either, if the topic comes up she badly pretends not to be uncomfortable and with a slight chirp And a ring of a bell points out some sort of design flaw in whatever he’s making, that Tony swears to god or gods, wasn’t there before.

Her eyes are still mirrors of his own. Still mirrors of his mom’s eyes.

He’s trying not to think about it.

——————————————-

Virginia Potts reaches up and pinches the bridge of her nose. Willing the chill of her fingertips to seep into her brain and make the building pressure behind her eyes still.

She has seven meetings today, five if she can wrangle Tony into leaving his workshop but realistically she has seven. Seven. Several hour meetings filled with convincing hundreds of old men (That are so close to death that she’s pretty sure her aunt would just call them ghosts now to get it over with.) that yes, this phone will make them all a good amount of money and will go over with everyone well, she’s the ceo of the company and she knows what she’s doing.

Speaking of her aunt, Virginia had recently visited her and she misses her presence already. Especially the way she can quietly bulldoze her way through any conversation simply by being as polite and disarming as possible, because she would really like that about now.

There’s a ghost in Tony’s workshop.

Suspended above Tony’s shoulder as he chats at the bots and JARVIS, the ghosts long dark hair, tanned skin, and dark brown eyes is all Virginia can see if she focuses, if she doesn’t, the ghost looks like it’s made up of nothing but sketch lines.

He hasn’t noticed her standing in the lab yet.

The ghost’s eyes scrunch up the same way Tony’s eyes do, they’re the same shape, the same color.

Virginia suddenly wishes she listened to Aunt Marge when she mentioned things like this. Sure Virginia doesn’t really have an interest in using her Eyes for anything other than Seeing what areas to avoid during Halloween, and Aunt Marge doesn’t really use her Eyes for much more than scamming people, but some experience would be better than none at the moment.

——————

Natasha was walking by Tony’s workshop, not really meaning to, just knowing of some sort of chaos nearby, when she hears loud arguing burst out of the closed doors.

Tony always says his lab is soundproof, but everyone aside from Clint can hear sounds from it in some capacity. The Captain complains about late night explosions, Bruce can always tell when Tony’s in there, Thor can hear every single rambling little thing Tony says in there, (though he’s been making strange faces when he’s listening in lately.) and Natasha can hear just as much if she focused. But.

Tony and Pepper arguing? Natasha is not getting in the middle of that, she’s going back upstairs.

And so she went, claws scraping the floor as she walks away.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m warning you all now this all has mild projection in the characterization sauce.   
And also Natasha has a chunk of Crowley’s essence stuff in her soul so I’m sorry but she’s gonna be a little weird.


End file.
